


the strange chances of the world

by certain_as_the_sun



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen, Maeglin becomes an adopted Fëanorian, Past Character Death, Past Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-28
Updated: 2017-03-28
Packaged: 2018-10-09 08:24:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10407957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/certain_as_the_sun/pseuds/certain_as_the_sun
Summary: In which Maeglin makes a friend.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Me, after rereading The Silmarillion: I don't care how much I love this book, I haven't time to write fanfics of it!  
> Me, several hours, a hastily written fic and a dozen plot bunnies later: ...Damn.

Aredhel's stories had painted Valinor as a kind of paradise, where everyone was happy. This portrayal, Maeglin found, was far from the truth. He had been released from the Halls of Mandos less than a year ago. In that time he had discovered Valinor was very similar to Gondolin.

In Tirion people saw him only as the traitor who had told Morgoth where to find Gondolin. The Noldor who hadn't heard of his crimes sneered at his Sindarin name. The Teleri he met shunned him for his Noldorin appearance.

He met Fingolfin and Anairë once. They were polite, and never mentioned Gondolin or Middle-earth, but not for nothing had his father named him "sharp-glance". He could see their thoughts as they spoke to him: _He would never exist if that Dark Elf hadn't imprisoned poor Írissë._

There were many things he could have said to this. He could have told them of the times when his parents had been happy together, of the hours Eöl spent in the forge making earrings or necklaces for Aredhel, of the time Aredhel enlisted Maeglin's help in an ill-advised attempt to bake cookies and how Eöl returned to find two vaguely Elf-shaped blobs of flour in the middle of a nearly-destroyed kitchen. He could even have told them of how Aredhel chose to remain in the Halls until Eöl was released.

He could have told them any of this, but he couldn't find the words. So he said nothing and avoided his grandparents afterward.

During the first months of his return he tried to find Idril and apologise to her. This proved impossible. Neither she nor her husband were ever home, and no one would tell him where they were. He gave up and wrote a note instead. She never replied.

Worse than any of this were the memories. Every night, and sometimes during the day, he had to relive his capture and torture, and the agony of having strips of skin cut off his face and limbs. Occasionally, just for variety, he dreamed of the Fall of Gondolin, and how it felt to fall from the city walls. When he woke up, trembling and half-convinced that he was still in Morgoth's clutches and everything that had happened in the last centuries was another form of torture, he wondered what Námo had been thinking. He wasn't ready to be reborn.

Finally Maeglin had had enough. He packed up his few belongings and left the inhabited areas of Valinor.

 

* * *

 

Maeglin loved forests. He loved the birds flitting about overhead and the feel of the leaves under his bare feet and the whispers of the trees. Valinor's forests weren't dark or poisonous like Nan Elmoth had been, but they were still _forests_ , and he felt more at home in them than he ever did in cities. He wandered through the forests with no destination in mind, no object except to stay as far away from other Elves as possible.

He spent months like this. The nightmares became less frequent the longer he spent under the trees. And he had every intention of continuing like this forever, or at least until Aredhel left the Halls.

 

* * *

 

A rhythmic _thud-thud-thud_ noise forced its way into Maeglin's dreams. He awoke with a jolt and listened. After a moment he relaxed. It was a sound he was intimately familiar with: the sound of someone hammering something.

He pulled himself up into the branches of the tree he'd slept beneath. From there he could see over the other trees to what lay beyond. Here, what lay beyond was an open field. At the far end there was a house, and in front of it - or at the back of it, since he was looking at it from behind - was a building very like Maeglin's forge in Gondolin. The hammering sound continued.

Maeglin stood listening, his head on one side. Now he was awake he could tell the sound wasn't rhythmic at all; there were pauses scattered irregularly between each fall of the hammer. _Thud-thud-pause. Thud-pause._  A long pause, then finally another _thud_. If he wasn't mistaken, that was the sound of someone who wasn't entirely sure what they were doing and kept stopping to check their work.

Curiosity had always been one of Maeglin's greatest weaknesses. As an Elfling his curiosity had led him to wander deep into the forest and nearly give his parents panic attacks when he was gone for most of the day. As a not-yet-an-adult it had led him to convince his mother to take him to Gondolin. Now, the urge to find out what the smith was making was too strong to resist. And that was how Maeglin ended up circling around the field, taking care to stay in the forest, until he was in front of the forge.

The door was open. He crept closer and closer until he could peek around the door-frame. His jaw dropped open.

This forge was nothing like his. It was nothing like any forge he'd ever seen, in fact. Jewels sat on the shelves as if someone had put them there and promptly forgotten all about them. Tools lay scattered all over the table - and for Eru's sake, was that a _laundry line_ set up over a bed in the corner? Metal twisted into strange shapes leaned against the walls. And standing over the anvil was the smith himself, hammering at a twisted piece of metal and muttering angrily under his breath. Maeglin spared him only a brief glance - enough to see that his long hair hung loose down his back, and _didn't he know how dangerous that was in a forge?_ \- before looking back at the objects scattered around. There was a metal box attached to a wooden frame with a cart's wheels fixed to it. There was a wire framework in the shape of a bird. There were all sorts of bizarre devices, whose purpose he could only guess at. There was -

"Child?"

Maeglin almost jumped out of his skin. He had been so preoccupied with the contents of the forge that he had completely failed to notice the smith had stopped his work and was staring at him.

He scrambled back, looking around wildly for a way of escape. The way he came was obstructed by bushes and tangled undergrowth; easily navigated when moving slowly but impossible to pass in a hurry. To the right was the open field, and to the left was a path leading to the house.

"I will not hurt you, child."

Maeglin shuddered and stumbled back. The last person to say that...

_"Why do you tremble so?" Morgoth whispered oh so gently, reaching out and stroking Maeglin's cheek. He smiled as the Elf recoiled from his touch."You have no need to fear. I will not harm you, nor let my servants harm you, if you tell me--"_

"I'm sorry!" Maeglin cried, curling up into a ball and burying his face in his hands. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I'll never do it again!"

A hand rested softly on his shoulder. He flinched, but no blow followed, no claws tore through his skin. He struggled out of the grip of the memories and found himself kneeling on the ground with his head resting on someone's chest as said someone hummed a lullaby Aredhel had once sung to him.

He pulled away, blushing scarlet.

"I'm sorry," he said, quieter and more calmly this time. "I didn't mean to spy. I was just curious."

"You need not apologise, child," said the smith. "I am not angry."

Maeglin wanted to protest that he wasn't a child - he'd been almost two hundred when he died, after all - but that would mean drawing out this already embarrassing situation. He started to get up. The smith's next words made him stop.

"You're one of the Reembodied?"

"Yes?" Maeglin said uncertainly, not sure where this was going.

The smith nodded as if he'd thought as much. "The nightmares fade in time. Try thinking of a time you were happy; I've found it helps."

Maeglin's jaw dropped. "Are you Reembodied too?"

A bitter smile crossed the smith's face. "Yes. A fact that I expect Tirion has yet to recover from or stop gossiping about."

"Most of the gossip in Tirion was about me when I left," Maeglin said in an attempt to be reassuring.

Another of his greatest weaknesses was his tendency to mean well but say the worst possible thing. Once he had sent Eöl into a rage by accidentally revealing Aredhel was teaching him Quenya. In Gondolin he had offended Idril every time he tried to compliment her. And now, he had managed to draw attention back onto him.

"You? What did you do?"

Maeglin cringed. "I... I am Maeglin of Gondolin."

The smith frowned thoughtfully. "Gondolin? That was Turukáno's kingdom, wasn't it? Maeglin... I've heard that name before... You're Írissë's child! She told every family member she met in the Halls all about you. She took particular pleasure in recounting how you forged a knife at the age of twenty-five. She didn't like it when I reminded her Curvo forged a sword at twenty. Her husband liked it even less."

Maeglin was thoroughly confused by now. "Who are-"

"Oh, that's right, I haven't introduced myself. I am Fëanor."

Maeglin hardly had time to register that before Fëanor continued. "You were curious, you said? About the contents of my forge?"

"No... well, not at first. I wanted to see what you were making but I got distracted. If you don't mind my asking, what are some of those things?"

Fëanor looked disturbingly gleeful. And that was how Maeglin came to spend the rest of the day discussing possible uses for a wagon that moved by itself.

 

* * *

 

The history books said many things about Fëanor. They said he was insane. He was cruel. He was petty. He cared nothing for anyone but himself. He would stay in the Halls of Mandos until the end of the world. They said nothing about how he never stopping moving, even in sleep. How he could talk for hours, jump from one subject to a completely unrelated one every other sentence, and leave lesser Elves struggling to keep up. How he forgot all about little things like "food" and "sleep" when he was absorbed in his work. How he didn't complain at having to drag another bed out to the forge for Maeglin.

Maeglin still didn't know how he had come to be a permanent resident (for now; he still half-expected to be kicked out at any moment) of Fëanor's house, but it seemed taken for granted he was staying. Sometimes Fëanor was like an older brother, or a father figure. Then there were the other times, like when he absentmindedly sat down on a bucket of coals and spent the rest of the day with black stains on his trousers, or accidentally set his gloves on fire and nearly had a panic attack. During those times he was more like a younger brother who needed adult supervision.

It proved impossible to reconcile the Fëanor who had drawn a sword on Fingolfin with the Fëanor who let him stay and put up with his nightmares and fears. Maeglin gave up after a week of living in the forge - technically speaking he was a guest in the house, but Fëanor never used the house when Nerdanel was away and lived in the forge instead. He could only assume the history books' claims came from the loathing that led those same history books to say Maeglin was part-Orc.

 

* * *

 

A month after Maeglin's arrival, Nerdanel returned.

Maeglin was in the middle of describing how his father had discovered and invented a way to forge galvorn when someone knocked at the forge's wide-open door. Maeglin and Fëanor looked up in unison.

A red-haired woman stood in the doorway. She surveyed the scene before her: Maeglin himself, the chaotic-as-ever forge, the extra bed set up in a hastily-cleared corner, the notebook in front of Fëanor and the ink stains on his hands and face. A part-resigned, part-amused expression crept over her face. "Fëanor, I do wish you'd consult me before making important decisions. Tell me, when did we gain another child, and are his parents going to come demanding his return?"


End file.
